An entertainment blog that was started in 2006, ignored from 2009 to 2011 due to work commitments & the advent of social media. Is back on line as of Jan. 22, 2012.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's, wait, why do I care?

So there is a new Superman movie being released this week and the buzz for it appears to be lukewarm. Lukewarm absolutely describes my feelings about this whole franchise. Put it simply, I just don't get it.

My Top 5 issues with the Superman franchise.1. Okay, why does no one recognize that Clark Kent is Superman. I mean he is just wearing glasses. Come on!!!! He works at a newspaper with reporters! You telling me that none of these so called journalists can't figure it out?

2. Wouldn't the events of the first Superman movie from 1978 with Christopher Reeve make Superman realize that he can be pretty lazy? If you don't remember, things start to go to hell so he flies around the earth spinning it backwards on it's axis. This forces time to go backwards so he can still end up saving everyone. To me, the only good Superman movie is Superman II. That's where the three criminals imprisoned by Superman's father Jor-el end up escaping and land on earth to kill the "son of their jailer" (imagine that said by Terence Stamp). They each have the same powers as Superman and they team up with mastermind criminal Lex Luther. Superman 3 was an embarrassment as Richard Pryor is a computer conman who steals from the bank he works for by having all parts of a penny rounded off interestn calculations and deposited into his own account. This was memorably spoofed in the film Office Space. The fourth Superman movie was even worse as they went for a movie that was an allegory about the nuclear arms race.

3. Exactly how powerful is kryptonite? Kryptonite is supposed to be part of Superman's exploded planet. The theory being that if he is around it, he loses all the power that the earth's gravitational pull is supposed to give him. But it should just make him as weak as an average human. Why is it sometimes it makes him so weak that he is almost dying. It's like what ever the plot needs him to do to overcome it, that's how strong the kryptonite is.

4. Do we really ever believe Superman can lose? I mean he is the strongest man on the planet. His arch enemy is no tough guy in Lex Luther. He is just a weasel bent on world domination? So if we know he is going to win, why am I watching the movie.

5. Why do all these bizarre things happen to actors who have played Superman. First there was George Reeves who played Superman in the 50s TV show The Adventures Of Superman. His death was ruled a suicide but many have maintained that the circumstances seem a bit odd and believe that he was killed. This is story is about to be made into a film called Hollywoodland starring Ben Affleck. Then there is the Christopher Reeve and the fact that he fell off a horse in 1995 and was paralyzed from the neck down. If I was current Superman actor Brandon Routh, I would be very nervous.